Judges hear Porco appeal

Carol Demare Staff write, Times Union

By Carol Demare Staff writer

Published 5:06 am, Friday, July 2, 2010

Christopher Porco is taken into custody after being found guilty Aug. 10, 2006, at the Orange County Courthouse in Goshen, N.Y., Christopher The case of Porco, who was convicted in the ax murder of his father Peter, an Albany County law clerk, and an attack on his mother, Joan, in their Delmar, NY home in 2004, is on appeal . (AP Photo/Michael P. Farrell)

NEW YORK — Arguments in the appeal of Christopher Porco's conviction in the ax-slaying of his father and the maiming of his mother five years ago were heard today in a state appellate court and focused largely on prosecution evidence that the mother identified her son as the attacker.

Just as the venue for the 2006 trial of Porco, then a University of Rochester student, was changed from Albany County to Orange County, the appeal was held in the Appellate Division, Second Department, in Brooklyn. Four justices of that court questioned extensively both defense attorney Terence Kindlon and Christopher Horn, who is special counsel to District Attorney David Soares. The two lawyers argued for a total of an hour, with Kindlon standing before the judicial panel for nearly twice as long as Horn.

While the questioning touched on many facets of the trial, the four judges appeared to be most interested in what the prosecution called Joan Porco's "excited utterance," the legal term to describe the nod of her head to Bethlehem police Detective Chris Bowdish when he asked if her son, Christopher, attacked her.

At the time, the 54-year-old woman was deemed near death with a head wound. Two years later, at her son's trial, she testified she had no memory of the attack and has stood behind her son, refusing to believe that he was the assailant.

Her husband, Peter, died in their Delmar home on Brockley Drive from head injuries inflicted during the early morning hours of Nov. 15, 2004. Porco, 52, was a well-liked law clerk to Anthony Cardona, the presiding justice of the Appellate Division, Third Department, based in Albany.

Capital News 9 carried the arguments live. It is expected to be weeks before the court renders its decision.

Christopher Porco, now 26, was not in the courtroom and is serving 50 years to life at Clinton Correctional Facility in Dannemora for murder and attempted murder.

In the courtroom, listening to the arguments were his mother and attorney John Pollster, a family friend who was a classmate of Peter Porco's at Albany Law School.